In a Facebook Live message Monday morning, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall announced they will be making two major shifts to the province’s tax system in Wednesday’s Budget.

Wall said with the economic downturn, the provincewill be moving away from resource revenues.

“There will be a shift away from a reliance on resource revenues and toward other types of taxes to help make up the shortfall, and to better-position us for the long-term. But there will be another shift as well, a shift toward consumption taxes but away from taxes on income and productivity,” Wall said during his message.

Wall said this change will keep the economy strong, while generating the revenue needed to ensure important public services are sustainable and remain reliable for the foreseeable future.

‘This fundamental change in our tax system is designed to keep our economy strong, while generating the revenue needed to ensure public services are sustainable and affordable in the long-run,” Wall said.

The Premier also said Wednesday’s budget will not be a balanced one, instead they will announce a three-year plan to get back to a balanced budget.

Wall wouldn’t go into any other specifics, saying he doesn’t want to give away the details of what Finance Minister Kevin Doherty will announce on Wednesday.

When asked why they decided to move to a three-year balancing plan, Wall said that even with this new plan significant and difficult decisions had to be made and balancing the budget this year would be a shock to the economy.

“We also didn’t want to completely undermine public service in the province with significant reductions, although you’ll see reductions in the budget the scope of them would have been drastically different had we moved to balance it this year,” Wall said.

Provincial NDP Leader Trent Wotherspoon says continuing to tax Saskatchewan people is not taking accountability for the $1.2-billion deficit.

“We have a Premier who said he wouldn’t hike taxes on Saskatchewan people who’s now contemplating big hikes to Saskatchewan people, he hasn’t been honest. He won’t come clean on the state of the finances all while telling everyone in Saskatchewan that he is looking at cutting everything,” Wotherspoon said.